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cellulosic ethanol
New Cellulosic Ethanol Subsidies
President Obama said in his State of the Union address that it was time to “double-down on a clean energy industry that never has been more promising.” Apparently, he includes cellulosic ethanol in that category, despite the industry’s many woes and skeptics.With the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) largely out of the clean energy loan-... [read more]
Biofuel Industry: Cellulosic Ethanol is Making Progress
Photo: NYT The Renewable Fuels Association has published an article on its website saying that despite a shortfall in cellulosic biofuel production in relation to the targets set by the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), as reported by the New York Times, the sector has been making advances. “In a very... [read more]
How to Fix the Broken Cellulosic Ethanol Incentive System
Overview: Mandates, Zero Production, Penalties, and the Failure of the Current System In the previous post, I discussed the annual ritual of rolling back the cellulosic ethanol mandates by 90% or more. For three years running, cellulosic ethanol production will come in far, far short of the mandated target volumes. In fact,... [read more]
Cellulosic Ethanol Targets: Mandating the Nonexistent
In what is becoming an annual ritual, the EPA is once more scaling back the cellulosic ethanol mandate for 2012. The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act mandated that we would use 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol in 2010, 250 million gallons in 2011, and 500 million gallons in 2012. I said quite explicitly from the start that this was wishful thinking, and that there was practically zero chance of meeting these mandates. [read more]
Virent Pulling Ahead of the Biofuel Pack?
The National Advanced Biofuels Consortium In January 2010, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the investment of nearly $80 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for advanced biofuels research and fueling infrastructure. About $35 million of the funding went toward the National Advanced Biofuels Consortium (... [read more]
Food Prices + The Biofuel Debate
People worldwide are being affected by a rise in the price of food. The causes are complex and interacting: last summer's drought in Russia, the price of oil, speculative trading in commodities, economic instability, political unrest on the Middle East, you name it. As Tamino mentions, some people sceptical of efforts to reduce... [read more]
CoolPlanet Creates Carbon-Neutral Gasoline
I see that Google's venture capital fund is investing in a startup company that would produce hydrocarbon fuels from cellulosic plant matter, with the added twist of sequestering carbon in soil. This is another signpost of the growing interest in non-alcohol biofuels, often referred to as "drop-in" fuels, for both oil replacement and... [read more]
Codexis aims to stand out from the biofuels crowd
Biofuels development at Codexis headquarters in Redwood City, CA. In the overcrowded biofuels business, it’s hard to tell the pretenders from the contenders. Every company claims to possess breakthrough technology that is just about ready for commercialization. Just ask Algenol, Amyris, Bluefire Ethanol, Coskata, Genencor,... [read more]
Cellulosic Ethanol Reality Begins to Set In
Delusional Mandates It is hard to believe that just a few short years ago, Congress mandated a massive increase in usage of cellulosic ethanol. This was remarkable, because no commercial cellulosic ethanol facilities even existed at the time. But people like Vinod Khosla were busy testifying before Congress that the only thing holding... [read more]
Evaluating KiOR
Join the forum discussion on this post Cracking Biomass Back when I worked in a refinery, I used to spend a lot of time thinking about how biomass would behave in certain refining processes. A fluidized catalytic cracker (FCC), for instance, takes oil and subjects it to heat and a catalyst to fracture larger hydrocarbons into smaller... [read more]
Poet Biofuels: Charting the Future of Ethanol?
From its start on the family farm with a single farm-scale ethanol facility to dozens of multi-million gallon per year biorefineries dotting the Midwest countryside, POET LLC of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is now the world's largest biofuels producer. Today in this theEnergyCollective.com podcast, I'm joined by Nathan Schock, director... [read more]
A Self-Fulfilling Bet on Biofuels?
An article in today's Financial Times (registration required) raises a worrying possibility concerning the plans of the US and other oil-consuming countries to rely on biofuels for an increasing fraction of future fuel needs. What if oil-producing countries took those plans seriously and reduced their investment in new oil capacity, on... [read more]
Range Responds
I just became aware that BiofuelsDigest wrote a story on my recent blog on Range Fuels, and got some comments back from Range Fuels' CEO David Aldous: Battle of the Falling Timbers Aldous said pretty much what I would expect the CEO of Range Fuels to say. He defended his company, and complained that the funding includes money for... [read more]
Verenium, BP Extend Joint Development Program For Ethanol Development
Verenium, a company engaged in development and commercialization of cellulosic ethanol and specialty enzymes, has extended a joint development program established in August 2008 with partner BP for an additional month until April 1, 2010. BP and Verenium will continue their ongoing joint development work to accelerate the development... [read more]
Broken Promises from Range Fuels
When I first began my career, a wise old-timer gave me a piece of advice that I took to heart. He said "When you are planning and executing a project, it is important for you to do what you say you are going to do. People are going to make investment decisions on the basis of the numbers you project. So don't over-promise and under-... [read more]
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Scott Edward Anderson is a consultant, blogger, and media commentator who blogs at The Green Skeptic. More »
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Christine Hertzog is a consultant, author, and a professional explainer focused on Smart Grid. More »
Jesse Jenkins is the director of energy and climate policy at the Breakthrough Institute. More »
Robert Rapier works in the energy industry and writes and speaks about energy and the environment. More »
Geoffrey Styles is Managing Director of GSW Strategy Group, LLC and an award-winning blogger. More »
Dan Yurman is a nuclear energy blogger and writes regularly for Fuel Cycle Week. More »
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3rd Annual Utility Customer Experience Management Conference
When: Wed, 2012-02-08 08:00
Outage Delivery Optimisation Forum 2012
When: Wed, 2012-02-08 08:30
CSP Today South Africa 2012
When: Wed, 2012-02-08 09:00
Africa Energy Indaba
When: Tue, 2012-02-21 08:00
NERC CIP Compliance Training
When: Thu, 2012-02-23 08:00
2012 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit
When: Mon, 2012-02-27 12:27
